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tossing and turning with dreams of Mike. Naughty, dangerous, distracting dreams . . .
    She didn’t have time for this. Not now.
    “Mom,” Sierra repeated, taking in her mother’s tangled hair and the empty wineglass. She would think about that later. They had more pressing problems now, like Dad’s legacy going MIA. “Trooper is missing.”
    “Missing? Are you sleepwalking again?” Her mother stood, then staggered. Drunk or were her feet asleep from sitting cross-legged so long in a dog bed? Lacey reached out with steady hands and patted her daughter’s face. “Sierra, honey, wake up.”
    “I’m fine.” Sierra batted away her mother’s hands as their three-legged Labrador went out through the doggie door. “Listen to me. Trooper. Is. Gone. He must have gone out through the doggie door, and then from there, who knows. But I can’t find him.”
    Her mother frowned and looked past into the kitchen at the cuckoo clock they’d bought while stationed in Germany. “You must be mistaken. Trooper’s in a crate in the family room. What are you doing up at six in the morning? You hate mornings.”
    A flash of irritation pierced her fear. Her mother apparently hadn’t noticed she’d been waking before eight to help with the animals for months now. But her mom didn’t need anyone sniping at her.
    And they had more pressing concerns.
    “I heard barking. Okay, barking’s normal, but this was worse. The crazy, pissed-off kind of barking. I was afraid the dogs had gotten loose . . . again.” It had happened too many times lately to be accidental. “When I came downstairs, I saw Trooper’s crate was open. He must have gone outside, which upset the other dogs. Except he’s nowhere inside the fence. Nowhere. And I’ve looked inside and out. Under every bed and bush. Trooper is missing.”
    Lacey turned to look through the screen, palms flat on the mesh, fully alert now. “The gate outside is closed. Secured. I don’t understand how this keeps happening. Heaven knows if he’d gone next door to Valerie Hammond’s house we would have heard already.”
    And not in a good way. Mrs. Hammond already had a complaint filed with the county council to shut down the rescue, and they couldn’t afford to relocate the rescue setup—her mom’s dream. Lacey had lost too much. Resolve swept away any remaining grogginess.
    “Maybe Trooper jumped over the fence on the other side and headed toward the wooded area? He wouldn’t be the first.” Although he was smaller than the ones that had managed that move before. Please, Lord, let him just be hiding somewhere enjoying a good nap and doggie laugh at their expense.
    “Or maybe your grandfather let him out.” Tiny lines fanned from Lacey’s eyes. Caregiver’s stress.
    Not that Lacey didn’t complain or lose her cool. She ran full tilt all day, cried sometimes, misplaced her reading glasses, left her day planner in the house, ran back inside to get it and dropped her keys. Yet somehow she still managed to cram twenty-eight hours’ worth of living into every day. The glass of wine probably didn’t mean anything other than unwinding on a particularly bad evening.
    “If Gramps did it, good luck asking him for details.” There were days Sierra missed her grandfather as much as her dad. Gramps was just leaving them in a different way.
    “Trooper can’t have gotten far.” Lacey scraped her tangled hair back and dragged a rubber band off her wrist, clearing the mess into a sloppy ponytail that somehow managed to look cool. “I’ll start driving around the neighborhood. Will you get Nathan to watch your grandfather before you help me look?”
    “Sure, don’t forget your cell phone,” Sierra called after her mom, remembering the last time she’d been unable to cancel a search for an hour.
    “Right. Thanks.” Lacey backtracked and swiped her phone off the iron patio table before she ran out the screen door, shouting, “Trooper! Trooooper . . .”
    Sierra shot a